Amp Footswitch

This is a simple footswitch that you can use on any amp that has channels that are footswitchable. to give you some numbers a boss FS-5U(single petal)costs $25 and a boss FS-6 (double petal)costs $50 this footswitch only cost me $7.08.

Sorry for the quality of the pictures it was taken with my cell phone in low light.

Please leave a comment and rate my instructable i like to know what needs to be improved/changed.

You will need:

Tools/supplies:

volt meter
Drill
small philups head screwdriver
wire
solder
soldering iron
wire cutters/strippers
electrical tape

What I had:(if you don't have some/all of these things the overall cost will go up.)

1/4 stereo to 1/8 headphones jack(shown below)
old headphones (preferably not right angle)
Heat shrink(optional)

What I bought:

SPST Momentary pushbutton switches 2 pack(275-0609)($3.69)
5x2 1/2x2" project enclosure(270-1803)($3.39)

what you need to do is extract the plug itself and about an inch or two of the wire connected to it.

depending on if your headphones have one wire that splits in to to(like the ipod ones) or just have two wires attached together you'll have to do this differently.

I have headphones that are one wire so what I did was I cut the wire two inches from the jack then uses scissors to cut the plastic off the jack. once the plastic was off I pulled the wire out of the insulation.

if your head phones have two wires do the same thing except you will have four wires.

so when thats done you should have a jack with 3 wires coming out of it

when your done striping the wires you should have 3 different colored wires they should be gold, green and red(or atleast the 3 headphones i tryed were)if it had four twist the two golds together.Gold is ground, green goes to the tip of the jack and red goes to the ring in the middle of the jack. if
you don't have those colors put some solder on each wire then test each wire with a volt meter to figure outh wich one or ones are ground(plase one end of the meter on the solder and the other on the thick ring on the jack. move the tester from one solder point to the next untill the light lights up.

I used speaker wire to exten the wire(10ft)you need three wires and should strip about two inches off each end of each wire.

if your going to heat shrink the wires indevigualy(recomended) place the heat shrink tube over each wire. If you have 2 grounds twist them together then wrap them around one wire then solder them on. make sure the solder touches bothe wires together. Repeat this for all wires.

if your taping the wires tape each on individually then tape them all together.

if your heat shrinking slide the heat shrink over the wires and use a blow drier to shrink them around the wires I then used more heat shrink to bond them all together.

Plug the jack in to the 1/4 adapter.

Drill a hole in the back of the box for the wire to enter through. drill two holes in the lid for the buttons. I felt that the abs cover was weak so i also drilled holes in the included metal plate ame put that on to though thats optional.

remove the nuts from the buttons and put them throught the holes then replace the nuts to make sure they don't fall out.

Pull the wires through the holes.

you pulled the wires through the hole in the bottom no take them all and pull them through about a foot and knot them together so they cant be pulled out. take the ground wire and solder two wires on to it. take all the wires and put heat shrink on each one if your using heat shrink. then take the two ground wires and solder each one to a post on each button. Now take the tip and the ring wires and solder one to the empty post of one button and solder the other to the other post of the other button.

get the blow drier out and heat shrink the wires or tape them if your not using heat shrink.

put all the wire in the box and screw the lid on. I put tape every half a foot on the wire to keep it organised more. I also used a label maker to label what each button does. I how you like the channel switcher that saved you over $40 from the boss unit. If you liked the Instructable and or the channel switcher please rate it. I will answer any question to the best of my abilities regarding this Instructable just post a comment.